You may recall that the city of Lubbock voted to overturn its prohibition on alcohol this May, ending its long history of being America’s largest dry city (the vote was for the whole county, but still). Well, the citizens of Lubbock have been waiting since then for the Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission to approve permits so that the booze can actually be sold. This week, those permits finally came, and the good times started rolling.
Beer trucks fanned out across Lubbock Wednesday morning making their first deliveries to grocers and other new alcohol retailers in the newly “wet” city.
And the demand, it appears, was bigger than distributors’ ability to reach everybody Wednesday.
“We couldn’t guarantee product in all nine stores today because of the demand on the distributors,” said Eddie Owens, director of corporate communications for United Supermarkets. “Everyone wanted the product at the same time.”
“Everyone,” as it turned out, added up to 83 retail locations that received permits from the Lubbock office of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. That included a mixed beverage permit for a bar and a restaurant mixed beverage permit.
“This was new for us,” Owens said, noting that United had never before dealt with a “reset” – rearranging store design to accommodate a new product – for all nine of its local stores at the same time.
Although there may not have been enough beer to go around, at least there was a lot of beer out there.
Wine fanciers weren’t so fortunate, however. Lubbock has no local wine distributors, so shipments come from elsewhere in the state.
Owens said that on the first day, only United’s Market Street locations had wine, and a small selection at that.
I’m sure that will improve over time. Here’s mud in your eye, Lubbock.
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